There were two men and two women who had avariciously answered the call. Each had been visited on numerous occasions by Mrs. Cramford, to whom advice was proffered, matters of concern instantaneously resolved, conversations held with the dead (the late Mr. Cramford often conversing with his extant wife through a variety of unseen human “controls,” who wailed and swayed and brought all the trappings of the afterlife into Mrs. Cramford’s present life). And even when the various results were incompatible, the old woman agreed with the psychics (who could only have had her very best interests at heart!) that in the spiritual world all was fluid and transitory and so it was necessary to confer even more often with those human Baedekers of that land of mystery to get its fullest lay. Porter and his brother and sister had no doubt that the network of fortune tellers in New York City often spoke insultingly of their mother in their private conclaves and shared information with one another of communal value, expressing all the while the great joy they felt at having at their disposal such a dependable and lucrative pigeon to dupe and cash cow to milk.
The older man’s name was the Great Belcazzadar. He wore a loose-fitting and slightly tattered black frock coat mantling an excessive amount of avoirdupois. The younger of the two women went by the moniker Madame Cassandriana. Her face was overly rouged, her costume a simple but sprawling red cloak. Her female companion was Countess Nadia, Mystic of the East. She was turbaned on top and draped and looped with strings of clinquant paste beads.
The last of the four looked nothing at all like a medium. His name was Edward Reese. He was young and handsome and came dressed as if he had just stepped from Dodge’s own men’s clothing shop, his rig crisp and exquisitely tailored. There was even a carnation under his lapel.
“That one’s slick,” observed Porter in an underbreath.
“And smug. The worse kind,” replied Dodge, who still could not get over the young man’s lack of circus theatrics, both in the manner of his dress and in his demeanor, which was disarmingly casual, almost indifferent.
Porter quickly got down to business: “We have a proposition for you all. There is a vase of poppies somewhere in this great polis. Our poor, memory-deficient sister saw it yesterday in the window of one of our city’s many flower shops. Alas, she has forgotten the name of the shop as well as its location. And yet she wishes now to go there to purchase the vase and flowers, to bring some morsel of joy to her sad, prematurely senile life. It’s a beautiful vase and the poppies are quite dramatic in their claret petals. Are they not, sister?”
“If that’s what you say. But my memory is so deficient I can scarcely remember my own name. Is it Rose?”
“No, it’s Violet.”
“Is this a joke?” wheezed the pursy Great Belcazzadar, who apparently found little humor in the presentation. “Because we are far too busy to endure it.”
The two female mediums nodded in vociferous agreement.
“It is no joke,” said Dodge with sudden clarion authority. “You are, no doubt, on close terms with our mother, Mrs. Cramford?”
There were shrugs and half-nods. It wasn’t clear to the quartet at this early point in the interview if events set presently to transpire were to redound positively or negatively on them. But all became clear in the next moment as Porter produced his gun and the terms of the challenge were laid out. There was shock and some fear on the part of the two women and the Great Belcazzadar, though Mr. Reese remained calm and collected. It was almost as if he were pleased with the sudden turn of events.
It was the garishly beaded Countess Nadia of the East (or, rather, Lower East Side) who surrendered first. Her patrician accent fell quickly away, leaving Delancey Street in its wake. “I’ll sign d’Goddamned paper. Just take the gun outta my face, yoose — yoose hooligans!”
And she was gone.
At least Madame Cassandriana gave it the ol’ college try: “I’m getting an image. Yes, yes, it’s coming to me now.” The madame’s eyes were squeezed tight, her lips pursed in intense concentration. “I’m seeing the window of Amorelli’s Florist Shop on Mulberry. The vase is there, is it not?”
Dodge shook his head and handed her the pen. Madame Cassandriana scribbled her signature at the bottom of the document that was to end her prognosticating career in the city of New York, while regretting aloud everything she would miss about the city — a berg in which she’d made herself quite a nice living predicting things that on rare occasions actually did come true (because even a stopped clock gives the correct time twice a day).
As for the Great Belcazzadar, he bristled and blustered and held to his contention that he was a legitimate seer, but there were times when the spiritual world was inconveniently opaque and it couldn’t be helped, and then he swept a tear from his cheek, signed the document, and left in a Patchouli-scented pique.
“Well?” said Porter, looking now at the chisel-jawed and sartorially spruce Mr. Edward Reese. Porter glanced knowingly at his brother and sister and then bore down upon Reese with deep ocular penetration. “What will it be?”
“Neither the gun nor professional disgrace for me, sir,” answered Reese, smiling sedately. “Because I happen to know exactly where your vase is.”
“Do you really?” asked Violet, her voice suddenly devoid of all skepticism.
Edward Reese nodded.
“Bull’s balls,” croaked Porter.
“I second the sentiment,” added Dodge, and then, because he could not help himself: “Say, where did you get those swell threads?”
“I’ll take you there,” replied Reese, his grin remaining fixed.
“To the place where you buy your clothes?” asked Dodge.
Shaking his head: “To the place where you’ll find the vase with the poppies. It isn’t, ahem, a flower shop.”
The three siblings traded looks of intrigued interest. “Lead on,” said Porter. He put the gun away. Perhaps the young man might take it to mind to flee. But then again, where would he go? He certainly couldn’t ply his trade in secret. They would eventually track him down; it went without saying.
Edward Reese was right; it wasn’t a flower shop. It was the 69th Regiment Armory on Lexington Avenue, site of the popular International Exhibition of Modern Art. “It turns out,” said Reese to his companions as he led them into the large Beaux-Arts building, “that your sister didn’t see the vase of poppies in the window of a flower shop at all. But perhaps van Gogh did. My friends, I give you ‘Vase with Poppies.’ It’s quite lovely, isn’t it?” The four now found themselves standing before that very oil painting, one of the artist’s later works.
“You’ve always known it was here?” asked Dodge through a grimace of defeat.
The young man shook his head. “I was told that I would find it here.”
“By whom?” asked Violet, not taking her eyes off the rubrical painting, though she was constantly being jostled by other attendees to the exhibition, “Vase with Poppies” apparently a favorite.
“By one who converses with me from the spirit world: by the painter himself.” Suddenly, the self-confident young man’s tone changed from brazen cocksureness to gentle, even charming solicitude. “My dear woman.” Taking Violet’s hand: “Did you on your last visit here have the chance to see van Gogh’s ‘Mademoiselle Ravoux’? It’s just around the corner. I ask because she happens to bear a striking resemblance to you.”
“Is that your studied opinion or just a glancing impression?” asked Violet with accompanying erubescence.
“I’ll let you be the judge.”
After the two had glided away arm in arm, brother turned to brother and acknowledged the disappointing reversal without exchanging a word. A moment passed. Porter released a sigh, and then wondered aloud if young Mr. Edward Reese had, in fact, known that the painting was there all along.